Government surveillance… creepy, intrusive, and unconstitutional! Automated license plate readers are spreading quietly across Maine towns, scanning and logging every car that drives past, innocent travelers included. Laurel sat down with two leaders from the ACLU of Maine, Policy Director Michael Kebede and Policy Fellow Alicia Rea, to unpack how Flock cameras work, what they actually capture, and why Mainers across the political spectrum are pushing back.
In this episode:
- How Flock’s automated license plate readers scan every passing car and build a “mosaic” of where you have been, from doctor’s appointments to churches to protests
- Why Michael Kebede argues that ubiquitous, government-controlled cameras erode the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement
- What Flock’s trademarked “vehicle fingerprint” technology captures: make, model, color, bumper stickers, and aftermarket parts
- How Maine’s 21-day data retention rule works, and why the camera company is not bound by it
- The towns that fought back: Sanford and Wells
- Why a bipartisan two-thirds majority in both chambers defeated LD 1457, the turnpike speed-camera bill
- How Maine’s 2019 facial recognition ban, which Kebede drafted, blocks Flock’s “Condor” product
- The wrongful-arrest cases that lead the ACLU to call facial recognition “dangerous when it works”
Dig deeper:
ACLU of Maine: aclumaine.org
Kathleen Tomaselli’s reporting on surveillance cameras in Houlton: https://www.bangordailynews.com/2026/02/13/aroostook/aroostook-government/houlton-surveillance-cameras-data-joam40zk0w/
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